Social Media

Android Homescreens Become Advertising

Coke is adding life to smartphone wallpapers. The cola giant has teamed with the Google-owned AdMob for a "Live Wallpaper" — an animated homescreen background that responds to touch and phone movement. In this case, the live wallpaper is playing on a motif in Coke's holiday ads. The brand's annual holiday commercial features Santa in his workshop surrounded by snowglobes showing various winter cityscapes. Santa tilts the globes together to reunite couples and families.

Now, Android users who download the live wallpaper app can mimic the action in the commercial. Tilt your phone and you'll send a man and a shopping cart on the screen careening to and fro. Shake the phone and the scene starts snowing, like a snow globe. (See demo above.)

To get the word out, Coke will promote the app via a mobile display ad campaign on the AdMob network, which Google bought earlier this year. Coke had been working with AdMob long before that, however. Showing the evolution of mobile advertising, the two excitedly announced the ability to play video over a phone — now a common feature — back in 2007. A Google rep says the app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times so far.

Greg Sterling, principal at Sterling Market Intelligence, says the exposure is a big win for Coke, though the brand will have to toe the line between making a big splash and irritating customers. "I don't know whether Coke can 'push' anything to the user through the wallpaper," says Sterling. "It would have to be careful not to do anything too aggressive or risk annoying the user."

While aligning with Google give Coke access to Android's roughly 17% of the smartphone market, the campaign is unlikely to be repeated on other platforms. "I'm not sure about BlackBerry, but iPhone probably wouldn't do this homescreen takeover," says Sterling.

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